Configuring Date and Time Display Format on Siemens WinCC Comfort Panels

Engineer field-notes on resolving the 24-hour clock request, the system events 330018 and 330019, regional substitution defaults, and the Win7 / Win10 simulation path error in TIA Portal V13 SP1 through V17 projects running on TP900, TP1200, TP1500, TP1900, and TP2200 Comfort panels.

Overview

WinCC Comfort / Advanced / Professional on a TP-series panel renders the date and time of an HMI tag using two distinct mechanisms: the regional settings of the active runtime language on the panel, and the optional HMI system events 330018 (date format) and 330019 (time format) pushed from the project at runtime. When the runtime language on the panel has no user-defined regional override, TIA Portal silently substitutes the default format string configured under the project language node. This substitution default is the value TIA Portal writes into the project under Languages & Resources → Project languages → [Language] → Date format / Time format.

The most common field complaint is that the panel insists on a 12-hour clock (hh:mm:ss) even when the engineering project was authored with a 24-hour expectation (HH:mm:ss). The cause is the lowercase/uppercase token on the substitution default — hh is 12-hour, HH is 24-hour. Toggling the project language, manually setting a system event, or changing the panel's Control Panel regional settings forces the corrected token into the runtime.

System Events 330018 and 330019

Two HMI system events are documented in the SIMATIC WinCC V13 SP1 Engineering Manual and persist unchanged in V14, V15, V15.1, V16, and V17. They are not listed in the HMI Alarms editor's default system event filter, which is why the panel reports “event not found” the first time an engineer searches the alarms editor. Both events are case-sensitive on the parameter string.

The Time format must use capital HH for 24-hour rendering. Lowercase hh forces 12-hour with AM/PM suffix. The Date format follows the substitution default unless overridden by event 330018. On a Comfort panel with no system event present, the substitution default for the active runtime language is applied at every Runtime start.

Date and Time Format Token Reference

The format parser used by WinCC Runtime on Comfort panels is identical to the substitution defaults defined in the project tree under Languages & Resources → Project languages. The following table lists every documented token.

Prerequisites

1. TIA Portal V13 SP1 / V14 / V15 / V15.1 / V16 / V17 with the matching WinCC Comfort / Advanced / Professional installed.
2. TP-series Comfort panel (TP900, TP1200, TP1500, TP1900, TP2200 Comfort) or KTP-series Comfort. KTP400 Comfort and KTP700 Comfort are also supported from firmware V14 onward.
3. If configuring via the panel's Control Panel: an active runtime on the device with operator rights to enter the Control Panel applet.
4. If configuring via system events: an HMI tag, a VBScript, or a scheduled task capable of issuing the alarm with the format string as the parameter value.
5. For Windows 7 or Windows 10 engineering hosts, the WinCC RT Advanced / Professional simulation must be running on the same Windows installation where C:\Windows\System32\control.exe exists; the simulation does not have its own embedded Control Panel applet.

Configuring the Date and Time Format

Two independent paths exist. Use Path A if the format is project-wide and the physical panel is the only runtime target. Use Path B if the format must change at runtime (for example, automatically on a language switch).

Path A — Set via the panel Control Panel (physical device)

1. On the Comfort panel, press the Control Panel button in the loader (or Start → Settings → Control Panel).
2. Open Regional and Language Options (early firmware) or Regional Settings (firmware V14 onward).
3. Select the runtime language that matches the project language you intend to leave active (for example, English (United States) for en-US).
4. Switch to the Date tab. Set the short date pattern to DD.MM.YYYY (European) or MM/DD/YYYY (US) as required by the SOP.
5. Switch to the Time tab. Set the time format to HH:mm:ss for 24-hour display or hh:mm:ss tt for 12-hour display.
6. Apply with OK. Restart Runtime when prompted so the cache rebuilds against the new regional pattern.

Path B — Set via system events 330018 and 330019 in TIA Portal

1. Open the HMI device editor in the project tree.
2. Double-click HMI Alarms under the device node.
3. In the Alarms editor table header, switch the view filter to System Events.
4. Right-click the table → Import system events → manually add rows for ID 330018 (date format) and ID 330019 (time format). TIA Portal does not surface these in the default filter, so they must be added by ID.
5. Click the Parameters column of the new event row and enter the literal format string, for example "DD.MM.YYYY" for 330018 and "HH:mm:ss" for 330019. The string is case-sensitive.
6. Compile and download the project to the panel.
7. At runtime, the events fire on the first start of Runtime and apply the new format. Trigger them on demand by raising the alarm from a VBScript or from a scheduled task attached to a language-switch event.

Runtime Language and Regional Substitution

The substitution default is applied whenever the active runtime language on the panel has no equivalent user-defined regional pattern, or whenever the panel boots and cannot find a matching Windows CE regional setting in its registry hive. The default for en-US in TIA V13 SP1 is M/d/yyyy for the date and h:mm:ss tt for the time. The default for de-DE is dd.MM.yyyy for the date and HH:mm:ss for the time. The 12-hour default on en-US is the most common reason the time field appears as 1:23:45 PM on an English project.

To override the substitution default for a single language without changing the operating system on the panel:

1. Project tree → Languages & Resources.
2. Right-click the target project language (for example, English (United States)) → Set as active runtime language to verify it is the one shipped to the panel.
3. Open the language's Properties and edit the Date format and Time format fields. The format parser is the same token set used in Path B.
4. Recompile and download the full project (not a delta) to ensure the new substitution default is written to the panel.

Simulation Mode Limitations

When the project is run in PLCSIM together with WinCC RT Advanced / Professional on a Windows 7 or Windows 10 engineering host, the panel loader's Control Panel button calls \windows\control.exe. On a desktop Windows installation this file is at C:\Windows\System32\control.exe; the WinCE-style path does not resolve and the loader raises a path error. This is not a TIA Portal bug — it is the loader's hard-coded assumption that the operating system is Windows CE or Windows Embedded Compact 7 (used on the physical Comfort panels).

To change the date/time format in simulation, use one of the following workarounds:

• Edit the Project languages → [active language] substitution default and recompile. The simulation picks it up at the next start of Runtime.
• Change the date/time format of the engineering host's user account via Settings → Time & language → Region. The simulation defers to the host's regional settings for some fields. See Microsoft's Windows 10 date format change guidance.
• Add events 330018 and 330019 via Path B and trigger them from a VBScript at Runtime start.

Applying Format via VBScript (Advanced)

The VBScript snippet below sets the time format to 24-hour and the date format to ISO 8601 short form. Drop it into a global script scheduled to run on Runtime start.

' --- SetTimeFormat_24h.vbs ---
' Place under "Scheduled tasks" with trigger = "Runtime start"

Dim sDate, sTime
sDate = "yyyy-MM-dd"
sTime = "HH:mm:ss"

' Event 330018 = Date format, 330019 = Time format
HMIRuntime.Alarms.SysFct 330018, sDate
HMIRuntime.Alarms.SysFct 330019, sTime

For multi-language panels, read the format strings from text lists keyed by the active language ID. Example: list row 0 = en-US → M/d/yyyy|H:mm:ss, row 1 = de-DE → dd.MM.yyyy|HH:mm:ss, and dispatch with HMIRuntime.Language as the index.

Troubleshooting Matrix

Verification

1. After applying Path A or Path B, restart Runtime on the panel or on the simulation host.
2. Open an HMI screen that contains a date/time field (typically the system screen or a custom screen with a date/time output field bound to a tag of type Date and Time).
3. Confirm the displayed time matches the format literal exactly, including the AM/PM designator when applicable.
4. If the format is incorrect, raise HMI alarm 330019 manually from the alarm view (open alarm → acknowledge) and re-check; this confirms the runtime is processing the event at all.
5. For multi-language panels, switch the runtime language in the loader and re-verify; the substitution default for each language must be set independently.
6. Power-cycle the panel to confirm the format is persistent and not held only in volatile Runtime memory.

Related Standards and Reference Material

The format tokens are a WinCC implementation of the .NET DateTime format specifier set, which itself is an extension of the ICU (International Components for Unicode) pattern syntax standardized in UTS #35: Unicode Locale Data Markup Language (LDML). When porting projects between TIA Portal versions, the token set is stable from V13 SP1 to V17; the only breaking change is the addition of the K time-zone token in V15.1, which is not consumed by Comfort Runtime and is silently ignored.

For additional reference on the underlying token semantics, see the Microsoft .NET custom date and time format strings page. For host-side Windows configuration used in simulation, refer to Microsoft's Windows 10 date format change guidance.

FAQ